Well Met, Lord Shaper
by InsertImaginativeNameHere
Summary: After his defeat at the hands of Sarah, Jareth finds another way to see her, by going through the Dreaming, in its Lord's absence. Everything is perfect - until the Prince of Stories returns.
1. Jareth

If there was one thing the Goblin King was good at, and he was by his own admission extremely talented in many respects, bending the rules perhaps just a little was certainly one of his most favourite. He could not bring Sarah into his kingdom again. She had invoked the right words, and they would protect her from that particular ploy. Similarly, he was not permitted anywhere near her brother, and besides, she had allies in his kingdom, she had power. So yes, perhaps Jareth cheated, as he was wont to do, always and forever and ever. Near to his own kingdom fell the vast, unchartable, ever-shifting realm of the Dreaming, unguarded and frankly, writhing in chaos with the disappearance of its Lord. Why, it was the simplest thing indeed to take a little shortcut, through the Dreaming, and into Sarah's unconscious mind. When she awoke, she mistook his presence for a strange feature of the dream, and within it he was able to take all sorts of liberties that would not have been permissible in the Waking World.

He needed to see her. He couldn't stay away, he loved her so, with a feeling so intense it tore him in two to see her hate him.

In dreams, she didn't always hate him. In dreams, she didn't always think. Everything was perfect in dreams, and Jareth had worked out a nice little system where he would visit on occasion, once a week and he had planned this out, choosing different days each week so as not to raise her suspicion, never visiting too close together (it was only courteous to allow a lady her privacy). It was every bit his intention to continue the matter on for the rest of her natural days, and then figure out some way to extend her life so they might be together longer still. Perhaps by then she would have changed her mind about becoming his Queen. Perhaps…

Everything was perfect in dreams, and a few years passed this way, until one night, after visiting his darling Sarah, Jareth was taking his usual route back to his kingdom, through the abandoned realm of the Dream Lord. He knew something the inhabitants of this sorry place (not a patch on his own kingdom, for sure. True, it was far larger, and the powers of the Dream Lord greater, but that was irrelevant. This place didn't have as wonderful a labyrinth, did it now?) did not. He knew where Dream of the Endless was, trapped in a glass bubble, wasn't that something now? Jareth couldn't help but approve. So he knew nothing would trouble him on his way home: nobody but the Lord of Dreams would have dared challenge him anyway. And if, on the off chance, his Lordship did get free, why, Jareth could charm his way out of it, the tiresome, tedious fellow was not immune to the subtle arts of diplomacy (read: lying), was he now? Was he?

As he walked, clad in all his gaudy finery, eyes daubed in silver, a spring in his step from his delightful meeting with his Sarah (they had dinner in dream-Paris. She threw her drink on him. Her passion was, as ever, exhilarating) he felt something in the air grow taught and heavy behind him. A silence, a deafening, echoing silence, and the chill of ageless, piercing eyes. Jareth froze. Not even Sarah had a glare that paralysing. Why now? It wasn't fair!

No. Nothing ever was. He reminded himself of this basic fact, and forcing a smile, turned around. There he stood, the Lord Morpheus, Lord Shaper, call him what you will. Dream. A tall figure, only perhaps a little shorter than Jareth (originally, Lord Dream had been taller, by but an inch or so, including his bird's-nest hair. Jareth had extended his hair further upwards out of petty competition, and now he stood taller), robed in sleek black midnight. His wild dark hair hung tangled about his inscrutable alabaster face, and his forbidding eyebrows were narrowed over eyes that shone with the light of (quite literal) stars. Jareth's smile cracked slightly, but he decided to play innocent, and bowed formally.

"Well met, my Lord Shaper. So good to see you out of your little bubble. It's been too long."

The Lord of Dreams remained expressionless. Some had called Jareth haughty before now, some had called him distant and aloof (and some were currently languishing in the Bog of Eternal Stench, as they justly deserved), but the Lord Shaper, _Morpheus_ took this to whole new levels. That unquantifiable expression, those unreadable, _infinite_ eyes, he was worlds beyond. In the Goblin Kingdom, Jareth's power was strong, but not absolute. Here, in the Dreaming, the Lord Shaper could do whatsoever he pleased. And didn't the Goblin King know it.

"Jareth, King of Goblins, I bid you welcome to my realm. Might I inquire the reasons for your presence?" Morpheus asked in a measured tone. His captivity had done nothing for his stuffy formality, that was for sure. At least Jareth, in his haughty, distant aloofness had a sense of humour, a concept of fun! Like kidnapping children, or playing impossible games (and cheating at them) and singing at possibly the most inappropriate times. On the other hand, Lord Morpheus had _honour_ _._ And _duty_ _._ And worst of all, _responsibility_ _._ He was an old bore, who disapproved of Jareth's bending of rules to suit himself, who had never liked the labyrinth game, certainly in his day you couldn't use dreams as part of the fun. But this was his day. He was back. And it was impossible to tell how much he knew. Playing innocent was certainly the best move.

"I was walking. This place is most congenial for a walk, don't you think? The skies are simply so majestic. What colour do you use, exactly, I'm thinking of redecorating the Goblin Kingdom soon and I want to get the tone just right?" Jareth turned around to leave, and saw the Dreamlord standing directly in front of him. Well, it was worth a try, regardless of its success.

"You were not, then, trespassing in the dream of one Sarah Williams, and you do not happen to know the swiftest route back to your realm, suggesting you have not made this particular... _walk_ before?" inquired Lord Morpheus, his voice level and entirely devoid of accusation or sarcasm, its timbre rich and _dark_.

Damn. You never knew where you stood with Dream, what exactly it was he knew; and as it turned out, he knew everything. Jareth prepared himself to make some spiel about war and consequences of turning against Fae-kind and the Rules (Dream was, naturally, a great lover of the rules), when the Dreamlord said abruptly, his voice low; "Obsession is a dangerous creature, Goblin King. Do not let it consume you. I speak from experience. Love and humanity, _mortality_ , it rarely ends well."

"I would make her my Queen! She would have everything she desired and more. I would bend my world to her wishes."

"Be careful, Goblin King," Dream's normally controlled voice took on a tone of tragedy "Once I said the same to a woman. Do you know what happened to her?"

Jareth shrugged. "I adore her. I would do anything to be with her. I don't care what happened to your boring, presumably dead girlfriend. I'm not such a fool."

The Dreamlord's face, for the briefest moment, took on a drawn, inner fury wound tight in his jawline for a the smallest fraction of a second, and then passed back to its usual blank. "You should care. If you do not take heed, Sarah Williams may go the way of Nada."

"Isn't that the woman who killed herself to escape you and because she spurned you, you sent her to Hell? I fail to see a parallel." And then he didn't. And then the parallel was all too clear and he wished more than ever the Lord Shaper had the good grace to stay imprisoned, or to keep his long nose out of Jareth's relationship issues. Ignorance is bliss, as the mortals say.

"You will stay out of Sarah Williams' dreams in future, Goblin King. She is under my protection. Do not come back here again."

Disappointed at the outcome, but relieved it had not come to battle, Jareth bid the Lord of Dreams farewell and, somewhat hastily, made his exit. When asked where he had been, he lied, but confessed he had news of the Lord Shaper's return and the other Kingdoms must be informed. He sent that Hogface Whateverhisnamewas as a messenger, and the insolent dwarf reluctantly accepted.

Already Jareth missed her. But it was, after all, for the best. Nobody wanted another Nada incident, did they? Sinking back onto his throne, he fell into a languid stupor, until something pricked at his ears. It was a child, a little boy, shouting at his young sister in a fit of temper. The king's lips twitched, and drew themselves into a smile.

" _I wish the goblins would come and take you away right now!"_

He rose. There was work to be done.

 _Morpheus watched from the shadows of Sarah Williams' dreams, until she exited that morning into the Waking World. She was nothing like Nada, not in appearance, but there it was, that ingrained stubbornness, written in her blood, and he knew what had drawn the Goblin King to her. Maybe his destruction of the relationship was not just fuelled by concern, maybe there was a jealousy, that the Goblin King might even have, in time, succeeded, where the Lord of Dreams failed. Maybe it was a selfishness, disliking the use of the Dreaming by anyone other than himself and his own subjects._

 _Maybe it was many things, but as he later sat back on his throne, in the dizzying grandeur of his throne room, Morpheus knew he needed a distraction. His realm had by no means recovered from his absence._

 _He rose. There was work to be done._


	2. Sarah

Chapter 2

 _Two nights later_

It was, Sarah realised, one of those nights, where you couldn't be sure if your dreams were that, or whether they were _those sort of dreams._ The ones you only thought were dreams. That had an underlying truth, that when you woke up you must remember and never, never dismiss. Something about them that clung to your subconscious and that was why she'd bought a diary and recorded every dream. So that if his Goblin-ness _did_ return, and tried to make her think it was 'just a dream', he wouldn't fool her; she would know about it. The other night she had dreamt about him in Paris, and that went down into her diary. Was that a dream? Presumably.

But the point was, you could never be sure. It went down into her diary. He wasn't going to get away with any bullshit on her watch.

Admittedly, since she had turned 18, she had experienced some very strange dreams about the Goblin King. Some of them she hadn't written into the diary because they were definitely dreams, just silly hormonal dreams of a silly girl. Not worth recording (besides, she suspected her stepmother read that diary).

This was definitely a dream. Partly because it had that feeling of unreality around it, but mostly because George Washington was conducting a rock concert. She would have dismissed it except, _except-_

Except there was a man in a long black coat staring at her and she knew the Goblin King couldn't come near her when she was awake (that was part of the rules) but dreams, she knew that he could get into her head and use dreams and there was a man in a long black coat staring at her.

Jareth.

To be fair to him, that coat was much better than most of his other outfits. _Especially_ those tights which left absolutely _nothing_ to the imagination (and Sarah knew she had a _very_ vivid imagination)

As if he didn't expect her to realise what he was doing, thought she'd be distracted with the First President's surprisingly excellent guitar solo. At first it had been every month or so, then every few weeks, now at least once a week she had dreams of the Goblin King. There was something going on, and she was done with playing games. Pushing her way through the crowd, she saw him turn away and walk off towards the edge of the hallucinatory festival ground, towards an expanse of trees.

 _Nope. He's not getting away with it this time. We are going to have a long talk on boundaries and then he'll go away and leave me alone._

If wishes were fishes...

Breaking into a run, she made her way past a corn dog stand (selling dogs. In corn costumes. Not the weirdest thing she'd ever seen, no, the Labyrinth still held _that_ record) and started gaining ground. _Here goes nothing._ Making another spurt of energy she reached the treeline and, breathing heavily as she stared out at the darkness of the forest, the long expanse of trees, the dark, lengthening shadows. Standing in that between-world, she caught her breath and yelled into the nothingness.

"Hey! I know it's you! Come out where I can see you, Jareth!"

Silence. Had he got away? No. He'd want to be here to gloat, to revel in his glory. It wasn't like him to run away like a little girl.

"Jareth? You can't fool me. I know you're there!"

More silence. The music behind her fell to a hush. Turning around, she realised that the crowd, the guitar-playing founding father's riffs dying away, everything had vanished leaving only a wasteland. Everything except the corn dog stand, which lingered, as if thinking about it for a little while, then vanished surreptitiously. She looked back to the treeline and took a step forward.

"Jareth? This isn't funny anymore. Stop it!"

Her heart pounding, she took another step into the forest, glancing around nervously, looking for the architect, the engineer of this grand master plan. Where was he? Surely by now he'd be showing off, juggling those silly glass balls of his (and yes she realised that was not a great sentence). He'd want her to know what he'd done, and of course, that he'd 'done it all for her', that he was 'her eternal slave' blah blah blah, his usual besotted spiel. It was unsettling to hear him silent. All of it was unsettling. This was a dream, she reassured herself, only a dream.

And yet there was no such thing. Just because something is a dream doesn't mean it isn't real. Dreams take place inside one's head, but the fact they take place at all means they happened.

"Jareth?" she looked around, and then saw him, a silhouette, stepping out of the bleak obsidian night. She opened her mouth to say his name, but stopped. How could she ever have mistaken this man for the Goblin King? The Goblin King had fair hair. This man had a wild mop of midnight tangles. The Goblin King cast a long shadow, tall, more sinister than he seemed to be aware. This man cast no shadow at all, as if he'd absent-mindedly forgotten he was supposed to have one. The Goblin King had some colour in his cheeks. This man looked as though he had been carved out of marble, sharp cheekbones, chilly expression. There was also the matter of his piercing eyes, but those were another story. Even Jareth at his most imperial couldn't match that look. This man, well, if being a massive creep was an Olympic Sport, she'd accuse him of using performance enhancing drugs.

He wore, now that she got closer, a heavy black cloak, wrapped several times around his lean, skinny body, not a coat like she had initially thought. He looked somewhat like a goth who had just got out of the shower, only perhaps a little (make that a lot) more menacing. Sarah herself, however, felt a strange urge to provide this man with food. There was a painful gauntness about his features, the dark hollows of his eyes, his elegant long fingers, bone-thin arms. Definitely needed feeding. Then she cursed herself - thinking about stupid things like that instead as worrying about the real question. If this wasn't Jareth, who was he?

"I'm sorry," she began "I thought you were somebody else."

"Yes," the man said, in a voice that sounded _older, stranger_ than any she had heard. It lacked humour of any sort. There was something she couldn't place in it, it had no definable accent. British? She wasn't sure. "I am well acquainted with his Majesty, King Jareth of the Goblins. He has been trespassing in my realm of late."

"Your realm?" Sarah asked, narrowing her eyebrows "And exactly what realm is that?"

"I am the Lord of Dreams," the man said simply, and Sarah rolled her eyes. Why were all the cute guys she met ancient monarchs or rulers of some sort? If they weren't eldritch fae beings, they were anthropomorphic personifications.

Quelling her own fascination, she inquired sarcastically "And does his Lordship have a name?"

"I have many names," Of course he did. "Morpheus is one of them."

"Morpheus. Okay. God of Dreams. I've read about you. This is awkward. Wow," she was desperately trying to play it cool, but dammit she was a nerdy eighteen year old and she was sure as hell going to enjoy meeting as many bizarrely appealing beings of any kind as much as she could "What was that you said about Jare- the Goblin King?" Changing the topic would work a treat. She was actually concerned about the amount of dreams about Jareth she had had of late, answers would really be nice.

"He was trespassing. We had words."

"Is that a euphemism for 'you kicked his ass' or what? What did you do to him?"

"Nothing," Morpheus seemed confused. "I forbid him from entering your dreams and allowed him to leave peacefully. War with the Fae realms would be disastrous."

"Oh, so the literal Lord of Dreams can't top trump the Goblin King?" Sarah snorted "That's a bit useless. I mean I guess, he's King and you're only a Lord so…"

"I am the physical aspect of dreams. I am considerably more powerful than Jareth, but there is...politics involved. There are the Rules." That was a Capital Letter, one she could almost taste as it dripped from his tongue. He continued, blithely oblivious. "...and I have only recently returned to my realm after some time away, there is much work I need to do. This place is too damaged by my absence for war."

"You've been away? Where'd you go, long cruise to the Caribbean?" Sarah asked sarcastically, only to be cut off by what she presumed to be a glare, as the expressionless face became noticeably angry, eyebrows lowered over suddenly terrifying eyes, the darkness outweighing the gleam of stars. It caught her breath in her throat, her heart sped up, adrenaline coursing through her veins.

When he spoke again, Sarah could feel the hairs on her neck prickling with what could only be described as permafrost. "I was imprisoned." That was all he said, but the weight of those words hung in the air between them. Ice crept up Sarah's spine, or at least felt like it did.

"I- I'm sorry," she began, but as she said it, Morpheus' expression thawed, becoming softer, still entirely inhuman and distant, yet somewhat less imposing and fearsome.

"It is...understandable. My sister tells me I should have a sense of humour."

"You have a sister?" Sarah couldn't help but be intrigued by the idea. What would being his sister be like? She imagined the Christmas dinners, with Morpheus looming over the end of the dinner table, party hat sat askew on his head. They probably didn't celebrate Christmas out here anyway. "Maybe you could set her up with Jareth instead."

"I doubt it. My sister- she doesn't -" Morpheus sighed "The sibling I refer to here is Death."

Oh. _Of course_ Sarah thought bitterly _Nothing is ever normal, is it?_ "You mean like the Grim Reaper or…"

"No. Not like the Grim Reaper," the Lord of Dreams said in a flat tone. "To you she would appear something akin to a cheerful _goth_ girl." he pondered over the word 'goth' as though it were unfamiliar, as if it tasted funny. She almost laughed at the bizarre face he pulled. "She doesn't engage in relationships."

Sarah nodded, taking everything in slowly "Why does nothing normal ever happen to me? My best friend is still a little goblin guy, you know, Hoggle's great and all but I'm eighteen! I'm eighteen and the only guy to ever ask me out, not counting that jackass from my chemistry class, the only guy to express any interest in me, is the Goblin King! That's messed up, isn't it? And now I'm here, chatting away to you and you're literally the abstract concept of dreams and your sister is Death and it's like the only two cute guys, I mean like really cute, one of them abducted my brother and the other is-" she trailed off, realising the abstract concept seemed taken aback, as in genuinely confused by the entire situation. His pale face registered profound bafflement, and that was almost as funny as the 'goth' thing because when he was totally in control, he cut an imposing figure, but the minute you introduced a little _humanity_ to the equation, you saw him blink with shock and he looked like a puzzled child. And it was adorable. In a weird sort of way.

"So...I'm not going to see Jareth again?" she tried not to seem too disappointed (or embarrassed) and she wasn't disappointed, not really. Jareth had been an asshole. She was glad he was gone. Besides, this was the perfect time for a topic change because calling the Lord of Dreams cute was really, really awkward.

"No. You will not. He cannot come to you in the Waking World - I presume you used the Words against him - and he cannot access you through my realm. I hope you are not too...enamoured with him, he has a very particular effect,"

Sarah's jaw dropped, then closed again. "No. I'm not. He's a pompous ass. And you're not much better." Maybe she only said that to see the look of sheer confusion on his silly little face. "You could have _asked_ me what I wanted. I'd have told you I wanted him gone, sure, but you don't need to replace him, you hear? No slinking about in my dreams. I like my privacy. And seriously, I'd like to date someone human before I start on my supernatural entities. I imagine you have work to be doing?"

Morpheus nodded slowly "When did I express interest in anything you just implied?"

The young woman smirked "When you ran away from me. Trust me, I know your type. You and Jareth, you have your differences; I mean he actually has a sense of humour, warped though it is; but aside from that, you're two peas in a badly-dressed pod. Why is it always me?"

"You remind me of someone," the Lord of Dreams said quietly "And I am not surprised Jareth took interest either."

"I'm flattered and all, but I don't want to be anyone's replacement. Got it? Let me go to college, date, fool around with a couple of guys, and then we'll see where I stand on mysterious and ancient beings, right? Right?"

He said nothing, only nodded, and turned away into the sprawling forest, disappearing swiftly into the shade, becoming instantly a part of the tenebrous woods. Gone. As soon as he vanished from sight, the mellow chords of electric guitar began again, the chatter of hundreds of dream-people started up once more, and Sarah turned back to the concert and decided, to hell with it, she was going to enjoy this dream and get herself a corn dog.

The next day, she woke, the taste still in her mouth, and jotted down the dream in her notebook, smiling as she did so. At least, she mused, the Lord of Dreams knew how to take no for an answer. She was sure Jareth would find some other way of stalking her, that was the way he was. Still. It had been a most interesting night.

Who knew what would come next?

 _She never did meet the Dreamlord again, though she did dream of his funeral. And the next morning her pillow was wet with tears. It was only a dream, she reassured herself, and that meant it had really happened._

 _A little while after she started to see his inverted image, a man almost identical, albeit with softer features and dressed entirely in white._

 _"_ _Hello?" she said, cautiously. He did seem so very familiar, but she couldn't be sure. "I'm Sarah."_

 _"_ _I know," he said, and did something almost unthinkable. He smiled._

 _He_ _smiled_ _._


End file.
